This post will deal with something else - the Water for the Poor Act, spearheaded by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). A recent post from Reuters-Africa described concerns by Blumenauer and other members of Congress that the Bush Administration is giving the act short shrift by not spending the money where it was intended. The act was passed in 2005 to ensure that long-term projects would provide water where it is needed most - places such as sub-Saharan Africa, which is in dire straits vis-a-vis water and will likely become worse off as the result of global warming.Blumenauer told a hearing that the State Department and USAID misrepresented how they spent $200 million that was to be targeted to help places like sub-Saharan Africa, where Blumenauer stated that only $10 million was spent. The State Department used most of the funds for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) said that a Water for the Poor act was passed, not a Water for the War act.
300 million are without clean water in sub-Saharan Africa and its only getting worse
Xinhua News Agency, May 31, 2007
Africa calls for increased funding of water resources, Lexis [Ramsey]
African ministers in charge of water have called for increased funding in order to promote the provision, usage and management of water resources in Africa. The call was made Wednesday in Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, at the start of the 6th Ordinary Session of the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW), which is being attended by about 20 ministers and representatives from development partners. "Your presence here demonstrates your willingness to mobilize financial resources with a view to promoting the provision, usage and management of water resources realization of sustainable economic and social development in our countries, without forgetting the preservation of our continent's ecosystems, " Republic of Congo's Prime Minister Isidore Mvouba said. Organized under the theme of "Coming together to overcome the challenges posed by water problems in Africa," the session is aimed at consolidating the actions of the AMCOW which, despite recording some progress since its inception in 2002, continues to experience difficulties in achieving its objectives. The objective of the Brazzaville meeting is to examine recommendations made by sub-regional groupings as well as by AMCOW's technical consultative committee. The mission of the attending ministers is to promote political commitment for the establishment of effective strategies for supplying and fostering rational use of water resources for the realization of sustainable development and preservation of Africa's ecosystems. The AMCOW is composed of a council of ministers, an executive committee and a technical consultative committee. Among other things, the executive committee is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the decisions of the council of ministers, elaboration of work programs and mobilization of the necessary financial resources. According to the UN 2006 human development report, more than 300 million people in Africa have no access to drinking water and 313 million people in Africa lack facilities for purifying water.
Contention 2-Disease
Unclean Water kills 3-4 million people in Africa each year
Geoffrey Dabelko, Director of Environmental Change and Security Program, Jun 29, 2005
Congressional Testimony: Water and Sanitation. Woodrow Wilson international Center for Scholars
We are all aware of the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS on sub-Saharan Africa. However, developing countries in Africa and elsewhere face another severe crisis that demands our help. Three to four million people—using half of the hospital beds in the world—die each year from another silent killer: unsafe water. The vast majority of these victims are children, struck down by waterborne typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery, and virtually all live in developing countries. Lack of water also impedes the social and economic development of those who survive: women and girls in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa must walk an average of six kilometers to fetch water—each way—preventing them from going to school or working outside the home. And millions more are too sick from chronic waterborne illness to attend school at all
Children are the most at risk—one child dies every minute in sub-Saharan Africa from unclean water
Millions of people in Africa are stricken with preventable diseases every year because they lack what the developed world takes for granted -- clean drinking water. The why, how and where of providing what many in the West see as the bedrock of sustainable development were examined at a May 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.
"Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions ... and the lack of clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day," Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne said. Lack of clean water worldwide, but especially in Africa, is "a global crisis," Payne said. Walter North, senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed, adding, that the United States is working with African partners to meet U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set to reduce by half by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water. "More than one child in sub-Saharan Africa dies every minute from diarrheal disease -- a direct result of inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene," North said.
Unclean water disproportionately affects HIV/AIDS patients, and creates conditions ripe for the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The lack of clean drinking water is at the root of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. Children and adults living with HIV/AIDS require clean drinking water to survive. Waterborne illness considered normally mild in healthy adults becomes an incurable death sentence for those affected by HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, millions of people lack access to the basic necessity of clean drinking water. In this same region, some 25 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. The result over 2 million children and adults die of HIV/AIDS annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Integral to this horrible cycle, sickness and disease resulting from the consumption of contaminated drinking water destroy the strength and development of African families and communities. This leads to extreme poverty, lack of education, tremendous inequities, and greater illnesses, creating conditions ripe for the continued spread of HIV/AIDS. Caught in this downward spiral, it becomes difficult, and most cases impossible, for individuals to progress out of their terrible plight.
Contention 2: Disease
AIDS spread will cause extinction.
Michael Kibaara Muchiri, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi, March 6th, 2000
Will Annan Finally Put Out Africa’s Fires?, Jakarta Post, Lexis
The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race.
Contention 3: Terrorism
Water shortages cause economic decline in Africa – 11 million are on the brink of death
Financial Mail (South Africa), March 31, 2006
Worldwide water woes, Lexis [Ramsey]
Water looks set to emerge as the new oil in the 21st century, as dwindling water supplies are becoming on economic drain on countries. As with so many other matters economic, the developed world is using most of the globe's resources and has access to more of it than the developing nations, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa almost 40% of the population have no access to running water or sanitation services, while that figure is less than 5% in North America, according to the World Water Council. Industrialised states under the OECD umbrella also use a huge 1550m³ of water per capita a year compared with a mere 100m³ in Africa. The economic impact of water shortages and droughts is also far greater in the developing world. The World Bank, quoted in the Financial Times, estimates for example that Kenya's GDP fell by 16% during the drought that hit the country between 1998 and 2000. The current drought in the horn of Africa threatens the survival of 11m people. The World Health Organisation estimates that the lack of access to sanitation and clean water knocks at least US$556bn/year off the world's potential growth rate - 1% of global GDP. In the developed world the impact is also felt, albeit less severe. US authorities put drought-related losses at between $6bn and $8bn/year, while agricultural losses linked to the 2003 water shortages in Europe were estimated at $13bn, says the Financial Times.
Sub-Saharan economic decline causes state failure
Jeffrey D. Sachs, director, Center for Intl Development, 2001
Washington Quarterly, the Strategic Significance of Global Inequality, Project Muse [Ramsey]
The most comprehensive study of state failure, carried out by the State Failure Task Force established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1994, confirms the importance of economic underpinnings to state failure. 3 The [End Page 188] task force gave formal definition to state failure (as a case of revolutionary war, ethnic war, genocides or politicides, and adverse or disruptive regime changes) and counted all cases during 1957-1994 in countries of 500,000 people or more. The Task Force identified 113 cases of state failure. Of all the explanatory variables examined, three were most significant: infant mortality rates, suggesting that overall low levels of material well-being are a significant contributor to state failure; openness of the economy, in that more economic linkages with the rest of the world diminish the chances of state failure; and democracy, with democratic countries showing less propensity to state failure than authoritarian regimes. The linkage to democracy has another strong economic aspect, however, because other research has shown strongly that the probability of a country being democratic rises significantly with its per capita income level. 4 In refinements of the basic study, the task force found that in sub-Saharan Africa, where many societies live on the edge of subsistence, temporary economic setbacks (measured as a decline in gross domestic product per capita) were significant predictors of state failure. They also found that "partial" democracies, usually in transition from authoritarian to fully democratic institutions, were particularly vulnerable to collapse. Similar conclusions have been reached in studies on African conflict, which find that poverty and slow economic growth raise the probability of conflict. 5
Terrorism 1ac
Failed states in sub-Saharan Africa allow terrorist organizations to acquire and use nuclear weapons
Thomas Dempsey, Director of African Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, April 2006
Counterterrorism In African Failed States: Challenges And Potential Solutions, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub649.pdf
Terrorist groups that are the focus of the current GWOT display the characteristics of a network organization with two very different types of cells: terrorist nodes and terrorist hubs.1 Terrorist nodes are small, closely knit local cells that actually commit terrorist acts in the areas in which they are active. Terrorist hubs provide ideological guidance, financial support, and access to resources enabling node attacks. An examination of three failed states in Sub-Saharan Africa— Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia—reveals the presence of both types of cells and furnishes a context for assessing the threat they pose to the national interests of the United States and its partners. Al Qaeda established terrorist hubs in Liberia and Sierra Leone to exploit the illegal diamond trade, laundering money, and building connections with organized crime and the illegal arms trade. In Somalia, Al Qaeda and Al Ittihad Al Islami established terrorist hubs that supported terrorist operations throughout East Africa. A new organization led by Aden Hashi ’Ayro recruited terrorist nodes that executed a series of attacks on Western nongovernment organization (NGO) employees and journalists within Somalia. Analysis of these groups suggests that while the terrorist nodes in failed states pose little threat to the interests of the United States or its GWOT partners, terrorist hubs operating in the same states may be highly dangerous. The hubs observed in these three failed states were able to operate without attracting the attention or effective sanction of the United States or its allies. They funneled substantial financial resources, as well as sophisticated weaponry, to terrorist nodes operating outside the failed states in which the hubs were located. The threat posed by these hubs to U.S. national interests and to the interests of its partners is significant, and is made much more immediate by the growing risk that nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) will fall into terrorist hands. The burgeoning proliferation of nuclear weapons and the poor security of some existing nuclear stockpiles make it more likely that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda will gain access to nuclear weapons. The accelerating Iranian covert nuclear weapons program, estimated to produce a nuclear capability within as little as one year, is especially disturbing in this context.2 A failed state terrorist hub that secures access to a nuclear weapon could very conceivably place that weapon in the hands of a terrorist node in a position to threaten vital American national interests.
Lack of water yields terrorist recruitment
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman The Millennium Water Alliance, May 16, 2007
CQ Congressional Quaterly, AFRICA’S WATER CRISIS, Lexis [Ramsey]
Though money cannot buy happiness, the total lack of it does produce severe unhappiness. People living in extreme poverty on less than $2 a day are in that posture because of the lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Human dignity is lost and hope is non-existent. Lack of clean water leads to stagnant economies and failed states. Population growth can be a positive unless education and job opportunities are lacking as a result of lack of access to water. Uneducated and/or jobless young men with no other opportunities are primed for recruitment into terrorist cells.
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This would lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
Contention 4: Water Conflict
Water resources are decreasing in sub Saharan Africa where conflict could spring up any time
Water conflicts are invariably shaped by local factors. But the sheer scale of these conflicts makes it impossible to dismiss them as isolated events. What we are dealing with is a global crisis generated by decades of gross mismanagement of water resources. The facts behind the crisis tell their own story. By 2025, more than two billion people are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize the water resources needed to meet the needs of agriculture, industry and households. Population growth, urbanization and the rapid development of manufacturing industries are relentlessly increasing demand for finite water resources. Symptoms of the resulting water stress are increasingly visible. In northern China, rivers now run dry in their lower reaches for much of the year. In parts of India, groundwater levels are falling so rapidly that from 10 percent to 20 percent of agricultural production is under threat. >From the Aral Sea in Central Asia to Lake Chad in sub-Saharan Africa, lakes are shrinking at an unprecedented rate. In effect, a large section of humanity is now living in regions where the limits of sustainable water use have been breached - and where water-based ecological systems are collapsing.
As conflicts over water grow wider and bigger, better efforts to sanitize the drinking water can reduce the competition greatly
There is a long history of water-related disputes, from conflicts over access to adequate water supplies to intentional attacks on water systems during wars. Water and water-supply systems have been the roots and instruments of war. Access to shared water supplies has been cut off for political and military reasons. Sources of water supply have been among the goals of military expansionism. And inequities in water use have been the source of regional and international frictions and tensions. These conflicts will continue—and in some places grow more intense—as growing populations demand more water for agricultural, industrial, and economic development. While various regional and international legal mechanisms exist for reducing water-related tensions, these mechanisms have never received the international support or attention necessary to resolve many conflicts over water. Indeed, there is growing evidence that existing international water law may be unable to handle the strains of ongoing and future problems.6 In addition to improving international law in this area, efforts by international aid agencies to ensure access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation can reduce the competition for limited water supplies and the economic and social impacts of widespread waterborne diseases. In regions with shared water supplies, third-party participation in resolving water disputes, either through UN agencies or regional commissions, can also effectively end conflicts.
Water scarcity causes enough violence to threaten the socio-political status of the countries and has fueled many regional wars in Sub- Saharan Africa. These conflicts spill over and could turn into larger wars
Lost amidst this perennial debate over whether there will be water wars has been a serious effort to understand precisely how and why tensions develop, beyond the simplistic cause-and-effect equation that water shortages lead to wars. First, whether or not water scarcity causes outright warfare between nations in the years ahead, it already causes enough violence and conflict within nations to threaten social and political stability. And as recent events in the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated, today’s civil conflicts have a nasty habit of spilling over borders and becoming tomorrow’s international wars. Second, water disputes between countries, though typically not leading to war directly, have fueled decades of regional tensions, thwarted economic development, and risked provoking larger conflicts before eventually giving way to cooperation.
Contention 4: Water Conflict
African conflict will lead to nuclear war.
Jeffrey Deutsch, November 18th, 2002
Political Risk Consulting and Research Firm Focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe, Setting the Stage for World War III, Rabid Tiger Newsletter, http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect – not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you. Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help – financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
Plan
Plan: The United States federal government should appropriate new funds for the provision of non-private assistance to sub-Saharan Africa through the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005.
Contention 4: Solvency
Just passing the Water for the Poor Act is not enough, backing it up with funding and implementation is key to the success of the program with education, assistance, and disease prevention
The low-level priority given to water, as reflected by the fact that it has no "home" within the US policy and administrative hierarchy, is exacerbated by the current funding process, in which there is no accountability mechanism to ensure that the appropriations made for non-line item areas, like water, are spent in accordance with Congressional report language. In order for the vision of the Water for the Poor Act to be realized, we must ensure that additional resources ones that can be tracked and accounted for are being provided to fund developmental approaches to expanding access to water and sanitation services. A good start to this would be making sure that water and sanitation are given a specific line item within the Development Assistance account. An integrated and robust approach to providing access to water and sanitation will enhance the impact of all US foreign assistance to Africa, including programs in education, HIV/AIDS, economic development and livelihood security. This fact reinforces the need to go beyond simply passing a landmark piece of legislation, like the Water for the Poor Act, to following through with its implementation. The Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance must move forward in fulfilling the Water for the Poor Act requirements of strategically prioritizing water and sanitation in areas of great need, like sub-Saharan Africa, and developing a method for coordinating and integrating assistance for safe water and sanitation with other US foreign assistance efforts. It is equally as important to the implementation of the Water for the Poor Act, that the US government make bolder, additional investments in a sector that has been sidelined for far too long.
Contention 4: Disease
The Water for the Poor Act provides the infrastructure and governance programs in order to provide clean water resources to sub-Saharan African countries, which improves economic growth, and promotes gender equality, and sharing between countries to share water resources
Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, Distinguished Members of the House Committee on International Relations, I would like to thank you for your invitation to speak on the important issues that the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 addresses, and welcome this opportunity to brief you on the work of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to increase access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries For over 40 years, UNDP has been working to support the poor across the globe to gain access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation as part of the organization's broad development agenda. First and foremost, our experience shows that improved access to water services and improved sanitation, coupled with sound management of water resources, contributes to improved livelihoods and productivity, improved human health, higher economic growth, and gender equality. Investments in water and sanitation are strong development drivers. There is no development possible without water, and there is no healthy ecosystem that does not depend on water for its survival. We are convinced that water is not only vital for life and essential for development, but also a priority for contributing to the achievement of all of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. We ask ourselves can poverty and hunger be eradicated or maternal health improved, or child mortality reduced, or gender inequalities addressed without improved access to water and sanitation? The answer is no. These goals cannot be met without water and sanitation, and this is one of the strongest and most important reasons why in my view the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 is so important. The table at the end of my written brief provides an illustration of the critical links between water and all the other MDGs. It also includes an illustration of the link between access to water and sanitation, and gender equality, and empowerment of women. In Yemen, for instance, with support from the UNDP, women's groups represented by the Supreme Council for Women worked with the Ministry of Planning, and in close coordination with other international agencies, to bring gender prospectus into their country's poverty reduction strategy. However, Mr. Chairman, our experience also shows that local capacity constraints often pose a severe limitation to the achievement of the MDGs. This is where the focus of UNDP's water program lies, highly complimentary to that of UNICEF. Through our effective water governance program, we aim to address some of the capacity constraints that exist in developing countries, to improve access to water and sanitation services. Effective water governance provides an enabling environment through policy, legal, and institutional frameworks for sustainable, equitable, and economically efficient use and development of water resources. This includes support to strengthen the protection and management of the water sources and catchment areas that all water supplies fundamentally depend on. We have to make sure that there is water running through the pipes that we build. UNDP supports the development of good practice mechanisms to promote integrated management of water resources. Our experience also shows that political will and commitment, motivated with enough awareness and backed with sufficient capacity, are key elements that determine the capabilities of governments to formulate integrated water resource management plans, and not the least to implement them. With support from UNDP, several Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon, have improved their national water policies and integrated water resource management plans. With the support from the U.S. State Department, our water governance program also promotes increased cooperation between countries that share water resources, such as in the Nile, the Mekong, the Niger, and other strategic river basins. The U.S. State Department's support to UNDP Transboundary Rivers Program is a critical element to promote peace and stability in many regions. Water is a source of tension between countries, but it can also be an entry point for collaboration. This program is highly complimentary to the global environment facility if they are in international waters, where the entry point is to protect the ecological integrity of shared water resources.
Contention 4: Solvency
More Funding for water supply projects needed to prevent Sub-Saharan African Wars
The U.S. government should support and encourage efforts to apply lessons learned from such prominent efforts. In another “basin at risk,” Angola, Namibia, and Botswana want to use the Okavango River in potentially incompatible ways, which could reopen old wounds in this former war zone. Basin-wide institutions such as the Okavango River Commission, however, are actively fostering cooperation to meet the countries’ changing needs and head off conflict. In one of its few multilateral water projects, USAID is supporting this fragile water basin institution as it tries to peaceably meet the region’s water, sanitation, and development needs.
D. The plan solves poverty, disease, and economic growth without resorting to doctors– countries are asking for assistance
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, June 29, 2005
CQ Congressional Testimony, THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis [Ramsey]
As a businessman, I understand the many competing needs leaders are faced with. However, if no provision is first made for clean water, I predict no country will rise out of its poverty and will always be an international burden. Without clean water, those countries will be back at a future G8 table with the same request for debt relief once again. Faced with 50% of the hospital beds of the world filled because of water related disease, 80% of premature death and sickness from bad water and huge losses of labor hours, we have a silent tsunami that buries any potential for economic development. As a humane society we want to throw every thing we have at treating the illnesses. However, we must instead vaccinate against the illness. That vaccination is clean water. Peter Agre of Johns Hopkins received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 for the discovery that every single cell of the human body contains a channel through which only one thing can pass and that is water. Water channels are key to such crucial activities as making the heart beat, the brain function and the limbs move. With 100 trillion cells in your body, there are one hundred trillion ways to get sick without clean water. Dr. Richard L. Garrison, Professor, University of Texas-Houston, Health Science, Department of Family Practice and Country Medicine has written a plan on a universal coverage health system. From that, I quote: "By any account, the first, most effective implementation would be the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, LEVEL ONE of the vertically integrated healing arts is the provision of pure drinking water. This must include every individual universally, because disease in a society can radiate out from any contaminated focus. Every citizen must be made fully aware of the preciousness of this resource so that they will guard their right and their responsibility. Most people would not consider drinking water issues to be the business of the physician. However, everyone would admit upon reflection that the things considered by most folk to be appropriate to the physician are not nearly as effective at preventing or treating disease as is the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, if drinking water is not an issue for the health system, then it must be conceded that other systems have more impact on health than does the health system. This ought not to be! Therefore, the vertically integrated healing arts should start at the drinking water level." I will be happy to provide a full copy of this paper. Adequate supplies of clean water provide a huge benefit for the whole global community as well. The SARS epidemic spread due to lack of adequate quantities of water for simple hand washing. HIV/Aids patients cannot be successfully treated without access to clean water and their caregivers are exposed as well. In the Central African Republic, there is an outbreak of a new disease called Hepatitis E. This disease is being spread through the water and has reached Chad and into Darfur. I fully encourage the passage of H.R. 1973. We must quit spending dollars to fix recurrent problems and not addressing the root cause. It is much less costly to address the problem and fix it. Not one member of Congress would be reelected if members of their district were told that there were better things to spend money on than clean water on if their constituents did not have access to clean water. The people are no different in other countries which we let languish without clean water, unable to develop and staying in squalor and forever therefore dependent on us. The Water for the Poor Act will make it a major objective of united States foreign assistance to promote good health, economic development, poverty reduction, women's empowerment and environmental sustainability by providing assistance to expand access to safe water and sanitation and improving hygiene for people around the world.
Contention 4: Disease
The plan solves terrorism by improving the perception of US presence – the US is key
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, and Donald M. Payne, US Representative, June 29, 2005
CQ Congressional Testimony, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HENRY J. HYDE (R-IL) HOLDS HEARING ON GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis [Ramsey]
When we talked to them and we said to the assembled community, "We're from the U.S., our friends in America understand that water is life, and because we love them, and they along with USAID have provided the money for MWA to work in your community and provide this new water source," and I want to tell you, if everybody could have been there, the vote would have been 100 percent out of the Congress, because the people clapped, they jumped, they danced, and they screamed their support for the United States. There was no animosity. This was basic grass roots diplomacy in action. They told us later that the only time their community had seen aid before from the United States was in times of famine, but now USAID, with us, has come with water to help them produce their own crops and avoid the pangs of famine, and I could do nothing better to support this bill than give you that good report. PAYNE (?): Would the gentleman yield? (UNKNOWN): Yes. PAYNE (?): That was just the point I was trying to make earlier when I talked about the very small amount that was going into sub- Saharan Africa, and if we can show that America cares, if we show projects like this, if we show people that we do want to see their children grow up and women be free and so forth, we can prevent the 95 percent that we're spending in Iraq and the West Bank and all the rest. In other words, if we can nip the grounds for terrorism in the bud by small programs like that, then we don't have to spend the 95 percent over there.
Congress’ Water for the Poor Act funds are currently not reaching sub-Saharan Africa
Campana, Michael, Director of Water and Watersheds at Arizona State Univesity, 19 May 2007,
http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2007/05/water_as_a_fore.html
This post will deal with something else - the Water for the Poor Act, spearheaded by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). A recent post from Reuters-Africa described concerns by Blumenauer and other members of Congress that the Bush Administration is giving the act short shrift by not spending the money where it was intended. The act was passed in 2005 to ensure that long-term projects would provide water where it is needed most - places such as sub-Saharan Africa, which is in dire straits vis-a-vis water and will likely become worse off as the result of global warming.Blumenauer told a hearing that the State Department and USAID misrepresented how they spent $200 million that was to be targeted to help places like sub-Saharan Africa, where Blumenauer stated that only $10 million was spent. The State Department used most of the funds for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) said that a Water for the Poor act was passed, not a Water for the War act.
300 million are without clean water in sub-Saharan Africa and its only getting worse
Xinhua News Agency, May 31, 2007
Africa calls for increased funding of water resources, Lexis [Ramsey]
African ministers in charge of water have called for increased funding in order to promote the provision, usage and management of water resources in Africa. The call was made Wednesday in Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, at the start of the 6th Ordinary Session of the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW), which is being attended by about 20 ministers and representatives from development partners. "Your presence here demonstrates your willingness to mobilize financial resources with a view to promoting the provision, usage and management of water resources realization of sustainable economic and social development in our countries, without forgetting the preservation of our continent's ecosystems, " Republic of Congo's Prime Minister Isidore Mvouba said. Organized under the theme of "Coming together to overcome the challenges posed by water problems in Africa," the session is aimed at consolidating the actions of the AMCOW which, despite recording some progress since its inception in 2002, continues to experience difficulties in achieving its objectives. The objective of the Brazzaville meeting is to examine recommendations made by sub-regional groupings as well as by AMCOW's technical consultative committee. The mission of the attending ministers is to promote political commitment for the establishment of effective strategies for supplying and fostering rational use of water resources for the realization of sustainable development and preservation of Africa's ecosystems. The AMCOW is composed of a council of ministers, an executive committee and a technical consultative committee. Among other things, the executive committee is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the decisions of the council of ministers, elaboration of work programs and mobilization of the necessary financial resources. According to the UN 2006 human development report, more than 300 million people in Africa have no access to drinking water and 313 million people in Africa lack facilities for purifying water.
Contention 2-Disease
Unclean Water kills 3-4 million people in Africa each year
Geoffrey Dabelko, Director of Environmental Change and Security Program, Jun 29, 2005
Congressional Testimony: Water and Sanitation. Woodrow Wilson international Center for Scholars
We are all aware of the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS on sub-Saharan Africa. However, developing countries in Africa and elsewhere face another severe crisis that demands our help. Three to four million people—using half of the hospital beds in the world—die each year from another silent killer: unsafe water. The vast majority of these victims are children, struck down by waterborne typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery, and virtually all live in developing countries. Lack of water also impedes the social and economic development of those who survive: women and girls in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa must walk an average of six kilometers to fetch water—each way—preventing them from going to school or working outside the home. And millions more are too sick from chronic waterborne illness to attend school at all
Children are the most at risk—one child dies every minute in sub-Saharan Africa from unclean water
Jim Fisher, United States Department of State, May 17, 2007
“US Congress Examines Drinking Water Crisis” All Africa http://allafrica.com/stories/200705180418.html
Millions of people in Africa are stricken with preventable diseases every year because they lack what the developed world takes for granted -- clean drinking water. The why, how and where of providing what many in the West see as the bedrock of sustainable development were examined at a May 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.
"Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions ... and the lack of clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day," Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne said. Lack of clean water worldwide, but especially in Africa, is "a global crisis," Payne said. Walter North, senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed, adding, that the United States is working with African partners to meet U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set to reduce by half by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water. "More than one child in sub-Saharan Africa dies every minute from diarrheal disease -- a direct result of inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene," North said.
Unclean water disproportionately affects HIV/AIDS patients, and creates conditions ripe for the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Thirst Relief International, 2006
“Water Supply Statistics and Facts: AIDS/HIV and Clean Drinking Water” Accessed 17 2007 http://www.thirstrelief.org/facts.htm#death
The lack of clean drinking water is at the root of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. Children and adults living with HIV/AIDS require clean drinking water to survive. Waterborne illness considered normally mild in healthy adults becomes an incurable death sentence for those affected by HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, millions of people lack access to the basic necessity of clean drinking water. In this same region, some 25 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. The result over 2 million children and adults die of HIV/AIDS annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Integral to this horrible cycle, sickness and disease resulting from the consumption of contaminated drinking water destroy the strength and development of African families and communities. This leads to extreme poverty, lack of education, tremendous inequities, and greater illnesses, creating conditions ripe for the continued spread of HIV/AIDS. Caught in this downward spiral, it becomes difficult, and most cases impossible, for individuals to progress out of their terrible plight.
Contention 2: Disease
AIDS spread will cause extinction.
Michael Kibaara Muchiri, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi, March 6th, 2000
Will Annan Finally Put Out Africa’s Fires?, Jakarta Post, Lexis
The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race.
Contention 3: Terrorism
Water shortages cause economic decline in Africa – 11 million are on the brink of death
Financial Mail (South Africa), March 31, 2006
Worldwide water woes, Lexis [Ramsey]
Water looks set to emerge as the new oil in the 21st century, as dwindling water supplies are becoming on economic drain on countries. As with so many other matters economic, the developed world is using most of the globe's resources and has access to more of it than the developing nations, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa almost 40% of the population have no access to running water or sanitation services, while that figure is less than 5% in North America, according to the World Water Council. Industrialised states under the OECD umbrella also use a huge 1550m³ of water per capita a year compared with a mere 100m³ in Africa. The economic impact of water shortages and droughts is also far greater in the developing world. The World Bank, quoted in the Financial Times, estimates for example that Kenya's GDP fell by 16% during the drought that hit the country between 1998 and 2000. The current drought in the horn of Africa threatens the survival of 11m people. The World Health Organisation estimates that the lack of access to sanitation and clean water knocks at least US$556bn/year off the world's potential growth rate - 1% of global GDP. In the developed world the impact is also felt, albeit less severe. US authorities put drought-related losses at between $6bn and $8bn/year, while agricultural losses linked to the 2003 water shortages in Europe were estimated at $13bn, says the Financial Times.
Sub-Saharan economic decline causes state failure
Jeffrey D. Sachs, director, Center for Intl Development, 2001
Washington Quarterly, the Strategic Significance of Global Inequality, Project Muse [Ramsey]
The most comprehensive study of state failure, carried out by the State Failure Task Force established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1994, confirms the importance of economic underpinnings to state failure. 3 The [End Page 188] task force gave formal definition to state failure (as a case of revolutionary war, ethnic war, genocides or politicides, and adverse or disruptive regime changes) and counted all cases during 1957-1994 in countries of 500,000 people or more. The Task Force identified 113 cases of state failure. Of all the explanatory variables examined, three were most significant: infant mortality rates, suggesting that overall low levels of material well-being are a significant contributor to state failure; openness of the economy, in that more economic linkages with the rest of the world diminish the chances of state failure; and democracy, with democratic countries showing less propensity to state failure than authoritarian regimes. The linkage to democracy has another strong economic aspect, however, because other research has shown strongly that the probability of a country being democratic rises significantly with its per capita income level. 4 In refinements of the basic study, the task force found that in sub-Saharan Africa, where many societies live on the edge of subsistence, temporary economic setbacks (measured as a decline in gross domestic product per capita) were significant predictors of state failure. They also found that "partial" democracies, usually in transition from authoritarian to fully democratic institutions, were particularly vulnerable to collapse. Similar conclusions have been reached in studies on African conflict, which find that poverty and slow economic growth raise the probability of conflict. 5
Terrorism 1ac
Failed states in sub-Saharan Africa allow terrorist organizations to acquire and use nuclear weapons
Thomas Dempsey, Director of African Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, April 2006
Counterterrorism In African Failed States: Challenges And Potential Solutions, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub649.pdf
Terrorist groups that are the focus of the current GWOT display the characteristics of a network organization with two very different types of cells: terrorist nodes and terrorist hubs.1 Terrorist nodes are small, closely knit local cells that actually commit terrorist acts in the areas in which they are active. Terrorist hubs provide ideological guidance, financial support, and access to resources enabling node attacks. An examination of three failed states in Sub-Saharan Africa— Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia—reveals the presence of both types of cells and furnishes a context for assessing the threat they pose to the national interests of the United States and its partners. Al Qaeda established terrorist hubs in Liberia and Sierra Leone to exploit the illegal diamond trade, laundering money, and building connections with organized crime and the illegal arms trade. In Somalia, Al Qaeda and Al Ittihad Al Islami established terrorist hubs that supported terrorist operations throughout East Africa. A new organization led by Aden Hashi ’Ayro recruited terrorist nodes that executed a series of attacks on Western nongovernment organization (NGO) employees and journalists within Somalia. Analysis of these groups suggests that while the terrorist nodes in failed states pose little threat to the interests of the United States or its GWOT partners, terrorist hubs operating in the same states may be highly dangerous. The hubs observed in these three failed states were able to operate without attracting the attention or effective sanction of the United States or its allies. They funneled substantial financial resources, as well as sophisticated weaponry, to terrorist nodes operating outside the failed states in which the hubs were located. The threat posed by these hubs to U.S. national interests and to the interests of its partners is significant, and is made much more immediate by the growing risk that nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) will fall into terrorist hands. The burgeoning proliferation of nuclear weapons and the poor security of some existing nuclear stockpiles make it more likely that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda will gain access to nuclear weapons. The accelerating Iranian covert nuclear weapons program, estimated to produce a nuclear capability within as little as one year, is especially disturbing in this context.2 A failed state terrorist hub that secures access to a nuclear weapon could very conceivably place that weapon in the hands of a terrorist node in a position to threaten vital American national interests.
Lack of water yields terrorist recruitment
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman The Millennium Water Alliance, May 16, 2007
CQ Congressional Quaterly, AFRICA’S WATER CRISIS, Lexis [Ramsey]
Though money cannot buy happiness, the total lack of it does produce severe unhappiness. People living in extreme poverty on less than $2 a day are in that posture because of the lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Human dignity is lost and hope is non-existent. Lack of clean water leads to stagnant economies and failed states. Population growth can be a positive unless education and job opportunities are lacking as a result of lack of access to water. Uneducated and/or jobless young men with no other opportunities are primed for recruitment into terrorist cells.
Terrorism will cause extinction.
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, Al-Ahram Political Analyst, August 26th, 2004
Extinction!, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm)
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This would lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
Contention 4: Water Conflict
Water resources are decreasing in sub Saharan Africa where conflict could spring up any time
Kevin Watkins and Anders Bertnell, International New Herald, August 24, 2006,
“A Global Problem: How to Avoid War Over Water”], http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/23/opinion/edwatkins.php
Water conflicts are invariably shaped by local factors. But the sheer scale of these conflicts makes it impossible to dismiss them as isolated events. What we are dealing with is a global crisis generated by decades of gross mismanagement of water resources. The facts behind the crisis tell their own story. By 2025, more than two billion people are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize the water resources needed to meet the needs of agriculture, industry and households. Population growth, urbanization and the rapid development of manufacturing industries are relentlessly increasing demand for finite water resources. Symptoms of the resulting water stress are increasingly visible. In northern China, rivers now run dry in their lower reaches for much of the year. In parts of India, groundwater levels are falling so rapidly that from 10 percent to 20 percent of agricultural production is under threat. >From the Aral Sea in Central Asia to Lake Chad in sub-Saharan Africa, lakes are shrinking at an unprecedented rate. In effect, a large section of humanity is now living in regions where the limits of sustainable water use have been breached - and where water-based ecological systems are collapsing.
As conflicts over water grow wider and bigger, better efforts to sanitize the drinking water can reduce the competition greatly
Peter H. Gleick, Director of the Global Environment Problem, Summer 1993,
“Water and Conflict”, http://www.jstor.org/view/01622889/di008143/00p0085u/0
There is a long history of water-related disputes, from conflicts over access to adequate water supplies to intentional attacks on water systems during wars. Water and water-supply systems have been the roots and instruments of war. Access to shared water supplies has been cut off for political and military reasons. Sources of water supply have been among the goals of military expansionism. And inequities in water use have been the source of regional and international frictions and tensions. These conflicts will continue—and in some places grow more intense—as growing populations demand more water for agricultural, industrial, and economic development. While various regional and international legal mechanisms exist for reducing water-related tensions, these mechanisms have never received the international support or attention necessary to resolve many conflicts over water. Indeed, there is growing evidence that existing international water law may be unable to handle the strains of ongoing and future problems.6 In addition to improving international law in this area, efforts by international aid agencies to ensure access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation can reduce the competition for limited water supplies and the economic and social impacts of widespread waterborne diseases. In regions with shared water supplies, third-party participation in resolving water disputes, either through UN agencies or regional commissions, can also effectively end conflicts.
Water scarcity causes enough violence to threaten the socio-political status of the countries and has fueled many regional wars in Sub- Saharan Africa. These conflicts spill over and could turn into larger wars
Sandra L. Postel and Aaron T. Wolf, Sandra is the director of the Global Water Policy Project, September-October 2001,
“Dehydrating Conflict”, http://www.jstor.org/view/00157228/sp040005/04x0151u/0,
Lost amidst this perennial debate over whether there will be water wars has been a serious effort to understand precisely how and why tensions develop, beyond the simplistic cause-and-effect equation that water shortages lead to wars. First, whether or not water scarcity causes outright warfare between nations in the years ahead, it already causes enough violence and conflict within nations to threaten social and political stability. And as recent events in the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated, today’s civil conflicts have a nasty habit of spilling over borders and becoming tomorrow’s international wars. Second, water disputes between countries, though typically not leading to war directly, have fueled decades of regional tensions, thwarted economic development, and risked provoking larger conflicts before eventually giving way to cooperation.
Contention 4: Water Conflict
African conflict will lead to nuclear war.
Jeffrey Deutsch, November 18th, 2002
Political Risk Consulting and Research Firm Focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe, Setting the Stage for World War III, Rabid Tiger Newsletter, http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect – not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you. Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help – financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
Plan
Plan: The United States federal government should appropriate new funds for the provision of non-private assistance to sub-Saharan Africa through the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005.
Contention 4: Solvency
Just passing the Water for the Poor Act is not enough, backing it up with funding and implementation is key to the success of the program with education, assistance, and disease prevention
Peter Lochery, Care Water Team Leader, 5/16/07
Beyond the Status Quo: Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf, Boxer
The low-level priority given to water, as reflected by the fact that it has no "home" within the US policy and administrative hierarchy, is exacerbated by the current funding process, in which there is no accountability mechanism to ensure that the appropriations made for non-line item areas, like water, are spent in accordance with Congressional report language. In order for the vision of the Water for the Poor Act to be realized, we must ensure that additional resources ones that can be tracked and accounted for are being provided to fund developmental approaches to expanding access to water and sanitation services. A good start to this would be making sure that water and sanitation are given a specific line item within the Development Assistance account. An integrated and robust approach to providing access to water and sanitation will enhance the impact of all US foreign assistance to Africa, including programs in education, HIV/AIDS, economic development and livelihood security. This fact reinforces the need to go beyond simply passing a landmark piece of legislation, like the Water for the Poor Act, to following through with its implementation. The Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance must move forward in fulfilling the Water for the Poor Act requirements of strategically prioritizing water and sanitation in areas of great need, like sub-Saharan Africa, and developing a method for coordinating and integrating assistance for safe water and sanitation with other US foreign assistance efforts. It is equally as important to the implementation of the Water for the Poor Act, that the US government make bolder, additional investments in a sector that has been sidelined for far too long.
Contention 4: Disease
The Water for the Poor Act provides the infrastructure and governance programs in order to provide clean water resources to sub-Saharan African countries, which improves economic growth, and promotes gender equality, and sharing between countries to share water resources
Olav Kjorven, State Secretary for International Development for the United Nations Development Programme, 6/29/05, Committee on International Relations, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa22262.000/hfa22262_0.htm#0, Boxer
Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, Distinguished Members of the House Committee on International Relations, I would like to thank you for your invitation to speak on the important issues that the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 addresses, and welcome this opportunity to brief you on the work of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to increase access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries For over 40 years, UNDP has been working to support the poor across the globe to gain access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation as part of the organization's broad development agenda. First and foremost, our experience shows that improved access to water services and improved sanitation, coupled with sound management of water resources, contributes to improved livelihoods and productivity, improved human health, higher economic growth, and gender equality. Investments in water and sanitation are strong development drivers. There is no development possible without water, and there is no healthy ecosystem that does not depend on water for its survival. We are convinced that water is not only vital for life and essential for development, but also a priority for contributing to the achievement of all of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. We ask ourselves can poverty and hunger be eradicated or maternal health improved, or child mortality reduced, or gender inequalities addressed without improved access to water and sanitation? The answer is no. These goals cannot be met without water and sanitation, and this is one of the strongest and most important reasons why in my view the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 is so important. The table at the end of my written brief provides an illustration of the critical links between water and all the other MDGs. It also includes an illustration of the link between access to water and sanitation, and gender equality, and empowerment of women. In Yemen, for instance, with support from the UNDP, women's groups represented by the Supreme Council for Women worked with the Ministry of Planning, and in close coordination with other international agencies, to bring gender prospectus into their country's poverty reduction strategy. However, Mr. Chairman, our experience also shows that local capacity constraints often pose a severe limitation to the achievement of the MDGs. This is where the focus of UNDP's water program lies, highly complimentary to that of UNICEF. Through our effective water governance program, we aim to address some of the capacity constraints that exist in developing countries, to improve access to water and sanitation services. Effective water governance provides an enabling environment through policy, legal, and institutional frameworks for sustainable, equitable, and economically efficient use and development of water resources. This includes support to strengthen the protection and management of the water sources and catchment areas that all water supplies fundamentally depend on. We have to make sure that there is water running through the pipes that we build. UNDP supports the development of good practice mechanisms to promote integrated management of water resources. Our experience also shows that political will and commitment, motivated with enough awareness and backed with sufficient capacity, are key elements that determine the capabilities of governments to formulate integrated water resource management plans, and not the least to implement them. With support from UNDP, several Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon, have improved their national water policies and integrated water resource management plans. With the support from the U.S. State Department, our water governance program also promotes increased cooperation between countries that share water resources, such as in the Nile, the Mekong, the Niger, and other strategic river basins. The U.S. State Department's support to UNDP Transboundary Rivers Program is a critical element to promote peace and stability in many regions. Water is a source of tension between countries, but it can also be an entry point for collaboration. This program is highly complimentary to the global environment facility if they are in international waters, where the entry point is to protect the ecological integrity of shared water resources.
Contention 4: Solvency
More Funding for water supply projects needed to prevent Sub-Saharan African Wars
Dabelko, Geoffrey, Director Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/testimonyHR1973.doc, 29 June 2005.
The U.S. government should support and encourage efforts to apply lessons learned from such prominent efforts. In another “basin at risk,” Angola, Namibia, and Botswana want to use the Okavango River in potentially incompatible ways, which could reopen old wounds in this former war zone. Basin-wide institutions such as the Okavango River Commission, however, are actively fostering cooperation to meet the countries’ changing needs and head off conflict. In one of its few multilateral water projects, USAID is supporting this fragile water basin institution as it tries to peaceably meet the region’s water, sanitation, and development needs.
D. The plan solves poverty, disease, and economic growth without resorting to doctors– countries are asking for assistance
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, June 29, 2005
CQ Congressional Testimony, THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis [Ramsey]
As a businessman, I understand the many competing needs leaders are faced with. However, if no provision is first made for clean water, I predict no country will rise out of its poverty and will always be an international burden. Without clean water, those countries will be back at a future G8 table with the same request for debt relief once again. Faced with 50% of the hospital beds of the world filled because of water related disease, 80% of premature death and sickness from bad water and huge losses of labor hours, we have a silent tsunami that buries any potential for economic development. As a humane society we want to throw every thing we have at treating the illnesses. However, we must instead vaccinate against the illness. That vaccination is clean water. Peter Agre of Johns Hopkins received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 for the discovery that every single cell of the human body contains a channel through which only one thing can pass and that is water. Water channels are key to such crucial activities as making the heart beat, the brain function and the limbs move. With 100 trillion cells in your body, there are one hundred trillion ways to get sick without clean water. Dr. Richard L. Garrison, Professor, University of Texas-Houston, Health Science, Department of Family Practice and Country Medicine has written a plan on a universal coverage health system. From that, I quote: "By any account, the first, most effective implementation would be the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, LEVEL ONE of the vertically integrated healing arts is the provision of pure drinking water. This must include every individual universally, because disease in a society can radiate out from any contaminated focus. Every citizen must be made fully aware of the preciousness of this resource so that they will guard their right and their responsibility. Most people would not consider drinking water issues to be the business of the physician. However, everyone would admit upon reflection that the things considered by most folk to be appropriate to the physician are not nearly as effective at preventing or treating disease as is the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, if drinking water is not an issue for the health system, then it must be conceded that other systems have more impact on health than does the health system. This ought not to be! Therefore, the vertically integrated healing arts should start at the drinking water level." I will be happy to provide a full copy of this paper. Adequate supplies of clean water provide a huge benefit for the whole global community as well. The SARS epidemic spread due to lack of adequate quantities of water for simple hand washing. HIV/Aids patients cannot be successfully treated without access to clean water and their caregivers are exposed as well. In the Central African Republic, there is an outbreak of a new disease called Hepatitis E. This disease is being spread through the water and has reached Chad and into Darfur. I fully encourage the passage of H.R. 1973. We must quit spending dollars to fix recurrent problems and not addressing the root cause. It is much less costly to address the problem and fix it. Not one member of Congress would be reelected if members of their district were told that there were better things to spend money on than clean water on if their constituents did not have access to clean water. The people are no different in other countries which we let languish without clean water, unable to develop and staying in squalor and forever therefore dependent on us. The Water for the Poor Act will make it a major objective of united States foreign assistance to promote good health, economic development, poverty reduction, women's empowerment and environmental sustainability by providing assistance to expand access to safe water and sanitation and improving hygiene for people around the world.
Contention 4: Disease
The plan solves terrorism by improving the perception of US presence – the US is key
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, and Donald M. Payne, US Representative, June 29, 2005
CQ Congressional Testimony, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HENRY J. HYDE (R-IL) HOLDS HEARING ON GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis [Ramsey]
When we talked to them and we said to the assembled community, "We're from the U.S., our friends in America understand that water is life, and because we love them, and they along with USAID have provided the money for MWA to work in your community and provide this new water source," and I want to tell you, if everybody could have been there, the vote would have been 100 percent out of the Congress, because the people clapped, they jumped, they danced, and they screamed their support for the United States. There was no animosity. This was basic grass roots diplomacy in action. They told us later that the only time their community had seen aid before from the United States was in times of famine, but now USAID, with us, has come with water to help them produce their own crops and avoid the pangs of famine, and I could do nothing better to support this bill than give you that good report. PAYNE (?): Would the gentleman yield? (UNKNOWN): Yes. PAYNE (?): That was just the point I was trying to make earlier when I talked about the very small amount that was going into sub- Saharan Africa, and if we can show that America cares, if we show projects like this, if we show people that we do want to see their children grow up and women be free and so forth, we can prevent the 95 percent that we're spending in Iraq and the West Bank and all the rest. In other words, if we can nip the grounds for terrorism in the bud by small programs like that, then we don't have to spend the 95 percent over there.